On the Way Home

by Skye Warren

  This time they were changing her bedding and bathing her, so I knew it would be a few minutes until they let me back in.

  “I’m going downstairs,” I told James. “You want anything?”

  He shook his head and resettled on the thin plastic chairs that would never be comfortable.

  James had been some pretty fucking awesome support throughout this whole thing, and even though I told him repeatedly to go home to Rachel, he told me she wanted him to be right here.

  He had been worried when I hadn’t contacted him about searching Ozerov’s place. When I didn’t answer my phone, he came over to Della’s house looking for me. He found Agent Porter going through Della’s trash—again. The woman was relentless. And Agent Porter had found the fingernails, so they knew things had gone south. By the time I woke up in Della’s truck and called James, they were en route. Too late to save Caro, but no one would be crying over her.

  Except Della. Tears fell down her cheeks like rain, one after the other, never ending. I didn’t know how her grief could match the skies. I didn’t know how to dry up the ocean.

  I found myself in the gift shop, which had a lot of cheerful stuff, pink polka-dot balloons and cards that played music and a ceramic figurine of a high-heeled shoe. I thought about getting her something like this—bright and meaningless. But in the end I kept circling the tiny shop, making the clerk nervous, until my gaze landed on a group of little plants in pots.

  They weren’t flowers. They were some kind of plant with green bulbous ends, flowers made out of cactus pieces. But not sharp. I read the tag. Succulents. They were nice, but I liked the one in the back with the green sticks. It reminded me of Della’s house, the lush lawn and climbing honeysuckle. So much green. I picked up the pot and wondered if Della would ever speak to me again.

  “That’s a great choice,” the clerk said. At some point she had moved to stand beside me. “The bamboos generate more oxygen than other plants. And they’re highly adaptive. They can thrive in most situations, even without fertilizer.”

  “Oh,” I said. I supposed that was good to know, although I’d mostly picked it because it looked pretty and earthy and elegant—like Della.

  “It’s actually a type of grass,” the clerk continued. “With very strong stems.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You gotta learn all this to work here?”

  She flushed. “No, but I’m a biochem major.”

  “Good for you,” I said, and meant it.

  “Did my junior thesis on these things. Anyway, do you want it? It’ll be $14.99.”

  I sighed, wishing there was something bigger and nicer and more expensive. Of course I wished for that. I was always trying to give money, according to James. A bleeding heart. A fucking martyr. I shook my head, disgusted with myself.

  But this was somehow worse, because I didn’t want to give her my money to help her. Didn’t want to give her a plant because she needed or wanted it.

  I had to give her something, to stay by her side, to keep trying to talk with her—for myself. I wasn’t a martyr with her. No, my motives were purely selfish. I needed her to talk to me so I could hear her voice. I needed her to look at me so I could watch her expressive eyes, sweet and so alive. I needed her to forgive me, forgive herself, so that I’d have a chance at a real future with a woman I shouldn’t have fallen for. But I had, all the same.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Della

  I drifted in a dreamworld, never sure which people were real. The doctors, they were real. And the nurses. They would push needles into me, and seconds later, minutes later, I’d feel a faint sting. Even pain didn’t wake me up.

  Caro wasn’t real, though. She came sometimes, standing by the door, holding her finger to her lips. Shhh. She was protecting me, then. Other times her face contorted in rage as she reached for me with purple claws. But neither of them were real, because Caro was dead. I’d watched her die. I’d held her limp hand and found no pulse.

  James. That was his name. Clint’s friend. I wasn’t sure if he was real. I watched without curiosity as he came in after the nurse left.

  He sat down in the chair beside the hospital bed. “You don’t mind if I wait with you, do you? Clint’s going to be back any second.”

  I said nothing, just watched him.

  He closed his eyes with an expression of bliss. “God, an actual cushion. It’s like a miracle. Do you think Clint would notice if I switched this with one of the chairs in the waiting room?”

  Funny. Smile. There was a time I would have smiled in reaction, but I’d forgotten how to do that. The muscles on my face were still asleep. The parts of me that could laugh or feel happy were still asleep. This whole thing might have been a dream.

  James studied me. “Clint’s worried about you. I’m guessing you know that. I’m also guessing you’re doing the best you can, but if you can give him any reassurance…” He shrugged. “He just wants to know you’re okay.”

  I thought about that. Was I okay? I was dry and warm. I had a bed that wasn’t exactly comfortable but it would do. No one was hurting me, except the doctors and nurses sometimes. Yeah, I was okay.

  There was a sound at the door, and Clint appeared. A dream? Real? Everything just felt so far away. But maybe the world was actually fine. Maybe I was the one who had left.

  Clint looked good. There were shadows under his eyes, probably because he hadn’t been sleeping well. Hard to sleep in a plastic chair, even one with a cushion, with his head propped up in his hand. He’d been there every time I woke up from a nightmare, shushing me, telling me it would be okay, and I’d thought he was part of the dream.

  It was easier to think he was part of the dream than to face him. Face myself. Face what I had done.

  I had gotten my sister killed.

  I had almost gotten myself killed.

  I had almost gotten Clint killed.

  Clint, who kept ordering food from the cafeteria and putting it in front of me, as if I’d suddenly discover a deep-seated desire to eat Jell-O and dry toast. Eat just a little, he would say. Have a bite.

  And I would stare at him, wondering why he didn’t hate me. He didn’t hate me, so he must be a dream.

  Now Clint was holding something. Not food this time. Not coffee. A bamboo plant. It was small and green, in a square pot glazed in a white and blue china pattern. I flashed back to a different time, a different plant, and my heart started to pound. What bad things did he have to do to get that plant? I was stuck in the in-between space, neither past nor present, but mired in my fear of the future.

  He held up the plant as if for inspection. “I thought you might like this. Thought it might make the room a little…” He waved a hand toward the gray hospital room, looking uncertain. Was he nervous? “Brighter.”

  Looking at the plant made a strange feeling well inside me, like liquid pooling in the center of my chest, pressing down on all my vital organs, crushing them. So I looked at the sheets instead. At my hands, twisted together.

  “It’s a…uh, bamboo. For luck. That’s what the tag says. And the lady at the store…”

  I stared at him like he’d lost his mind. Luck? He wanted to give me luck? I was the opposite of luck. I was basically the grim reaper in a flight attendant uniform. I was…getting a little dramatic, even in my own mind.

  “Why are you here?” My voice came out hoarse and rusty.

  His whole body tensed at the sound, as if he had to restrain himself against doing something big and possibly violent. Grabbing me? Holding me? I wanted him to hold me. But he got himself under control. When he spoke, it was with a wariness that broke my heart.

  “I got you this plant,” he said.

  “I don’t want your plant.”

  “Okay,” he said easily and reached his hand out to toss it in the trash. Throwing it in the trash. Flushing it down the toilet.

  “Wait!”

  He stopped and watched me like I was the crazy one. And okay, fair point. But I wasn’t actually
crazy. I was just tired. I was dreaming. I was waiting to wake up.

  Clint set the plant down on the cabinet that held the monitor. Beep, beep, beep. Still alive and breathing. He sat in the chair James had vacated, wincing as it creaked under his weight. He was a big guy. The chairs here couldn’t hold him. I couldn’t imagine him fitting in the hospital bed I was currently living in. But for all his innate power, he looked almost hopeless. Like he didn’t know what to do.

  He just wants to know you’re okay.

  Was that why he kept coming back? And if I told him I was okay, would he stop coming? The thought filled me with cold dread. I’d never see him again, but it wasn’t fair to bind him to me, anchored by his fierce need to protect.

  “I’m feeling a little better,” I offered.

  Something flashed through his eyes, swift and blinding. He spoke mildly, still careful. Still cautious. “You had me worried.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t talk because…” I wasn’t really sure how to explain it. “I guess I didn’t know what to say.”

  For three whole days.

  He reached out a hand and then pulled it back. “It’s okay not to talk. You were attacked and brutalized. It’s okay to be afraid, and I didn’t want to push you too fast. But I don’t even know if you want me to stay or…”

  “Stay.” Regret panged in my chest. “Or don’t. I wouldn’t hold it against you. I mean…I tried to kill you. I think breaking up with me is kind of par for the course.”

  His lips twitched. “Were we dating?”

  For some reason, a flush spread up through my chest and heated my cheeks. “Maybe not in the traditional sense.”

  The look in his eyes told me he remembered in exactly what sense we did connect. Hot nights beneath the cool sheets. Kissing feverishly in the kitchen. Bending him over the bed and pegging him…right up until I’d betrayed him.

  “No,” he agreed. “Not in the traditional sense. But in a way I’d like to try again. Without the…you know…”

  I remained silent, wanting to see how he’d describe it.

  “Without the psychopathic maniac pulling your strings,” he said.

  My eyebrows shot up. Pretty good description, actually. The only thing I didn’t like was that it removed the responsibility from me. “I don’t understand why you’re even talking to me when I tried to kill you. I should be in jail.”

  He shrugged even though I could tell he was uncomfortable. “He played you. You don’t need to feel bad about that. He played a lot of high-ranking law-enforcement officers too.”

  “And Caro?” I asked softly.

  “Her too. Her most of all. She was the reason they were after that list.” When I raised my eyebrows in question, he nodded. “Ozerov’s name had been on the FBI’s radar for a long time. I had even heard about him overseas. The problem with guys like that is getting enough evidence to convict.”

  “But my sister wasn’t on any watch lists.”

  “That’s right, which meant she could travel without anyone questioning her. She went to Russia, to China. She dealt directly with the manufacturers and made herself important in Ozerov’s organization.”

  “But why?” I asked, bewildered. She could have gotten away. We both could have gotten away.

  Clint’s eyes were sympathetic but implacable. He wouldn’t let me escape the truth about my sister, not anymore. “Money? Power? Why does anyone become a murderer?”

  I flinched. In my case, I knew exactly why, but it didn’t relieve me of my responsibility.

  “Not you, Della. You’re not a murderer. You didn’t want to hurt me. You think I don’t know that? I figured that out in the bed of your truck, while we were bouncing along at ten miles per hour. I figured that out when you were holding me, crying, after you’d stuck me with that needle.”

  My eyes were wide. He was yelling now, and it was like a cold splash of water on my face, yanking me out of sleep. This was what I’d been looking for. His anger. His disgust. I didn’t deserve his sympathy—didn’t deserve him at all.

  He stood and paced the floor. He ran a hand over his hair and then turned to face me. “Of course you’d protect your sister. And of course I’d help you. Yes, even if I died to do it. You think I’d go to another country and die for a stranger, but I wouldn’t die for you? I’m yours, Della. I’ve been yours since you first offered me some goddamn peanuts on the flight home.”

  I stared at him, unable to speak, but for a totally different reason this time. There were too many things I wanted to say. Questions I needed to ask. I had to ask whether he meant it when he said he was mine. My heart beat too fast and my breath came too short to form any words. It didn’t matter, because he wasn’t finished.

  “God, Della. I wasn’t mad that you turned me over to Dmitri. I was mad that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth. I could have told you he wouldn’t hand your sister over if she was really a hostage. I could have helped you plan the exchange to stay safe. Or at least, given you my gun and taught you how to use it. You almost got yourself killed, and that’s why I’m fucking pissed.”

  My chest felt tight, the air in my lungs growing, expanding. “Oh,” I managed.

  “Yes, oh. And what I really want, if you’re looking for some way to make things up to me, is to get out of this damned hospital and never come back. I want to be barefoot in your kitchen frying bacon. I want to be bent over your bed, getting my ass reamed and—”

  A small sound came from the door. We both looked over at James, who was standing there holding a cardboard container of two coffees and a bag from the café downstairs. His mouth was hanging open. He looked scandalized.

  “I’ll just…leave these here.” He deposited the food and drinks on the nearest flat surface and bolted from the room.

  “Well, shit,” Clint said in the following silence.

  The strange airy feeling inside me popped, like a balloon, and a small laugh huffed out of me. That turned into a giggle. Clint gave me a repressive look, but then his lips quirked. Then he was laughing too, a big laugh with his hands on his knees. Laughing woke me up like nothing else could have done. Laughing did what pain and sleep and guilt could never do. Laughing brought me back.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Clint

  I waited for what felt like hours, straining to hear anything coming from outside the room. Logically I knew only a few minutes had passed, but every second beneath the blindfold expanded in time, like a drop of water in a well.

  My hands were free. I could just rip off the blindfold. My ankles were unbound. I could leave this room, find Della, and push her up against a wall. But the anticipation made the edge of arousal sharper.

  My cock was tenting the front of my cargo pants. My faded army t-shirt, usually so freaking comfortable, felt like sandpaper against my nipples. Find her. Take her. But she had promised the wait would be worth it…

  A sound came from the door. I tensed as I heard Della’s familiar footsteps enter the room. How many times had I heard her enter, waiting with my face pressed against the headboard or pushed into the mattress. I had come to know Della well in the past few weeks, but she had come to know me even better. She knew how to make me squirm. How to make me beg. How to make me hurt so fucking good I couldn’t wait to do it again.

  “Patience,” she said, correctly reading the frustration in my body.

  I tried to relax. And failed.

  There was something different today, a change in the cadence of her walk. My mind scanned through possibilities like the whirring of a slot machine. Cha-ching. She was wearing shoes on the carpet. I hoped they were her black stilettos. She wore them and pressed them to my skin, and I practically came on contact.

  A whisper of air beside me carried her scent. There she was, so close. Then her hands were light on the back of my head, tugging the fabric, loosening the blindfold until it fell in my lap. I stared in shock at the sight that greeted me. In the upstairs bedroom of Della’s white house, she was wearing her blue s
tewardess uniform. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun. Her makeup was crisp, lips a deep ruby red. I let my gaze fall down over her slender hips and long legs. God, those legs. All the way to her shoes. Not black stilettoes. These were navy blue to match her uniform, shiny patent leather, shorter and more practical to walk in but no less sexy. More sexy, because they were part of her prim-and-proper uniform. She’d worn it just for me.

  “Della,” I said hoarsely. I had to cram so much into that word. You’re so beautiful. I’m head over heels for you. I love you. Things I couldn’t say when she was looking at me like she wanted to eat me up.

  She glanced down at her name tag. DELLA, it said in bold capital letters. “That’s right.” She smiled. “Can I get you something? Water? A soda?”

  I swallowed, remembering those questions on a plane three weeks ago. My mouth was impossibly dry, desperate for something to drink. “No, thanks,” I said.

  I didn’t want a soda. I wanted to lick the moisture from her skin, and from the look in her eyes, she had a plan to get us there. She smiled again. “I think I can rustle up some pretzels if you ask nicely.”

  The way she said pretzels, I knew she wasn’t talking about food. She was talking about tying me up in knots, and it was too late, really. She’d made knots inside my body—around my heart and up to my brain. Tied in a bow around my cock. Invisible ropes that never chafed; they just reminded me who I belonged to. They would stay even when I was deployed again. Even when she was on a plane. Even when I sat in a chair in her bedroom and pretended to be a passenger.

  “I’m not very hungry,” I said. “But there is something you can help me with.”

  Her eyes sparked with pleasure. “Oh, what’s that? I do aim to please.”

  I suppressed a groan. The woman pushed all my buttons—every single one that made my body turn into flames. “The problem is I can’t get this seat belt working.”